The Immigration Department today pledged to speed up its visa issuance procedure for Indonesian migrant workers who have been issued with work permits so that they may return quickly to ease the labour crunch severely affecting industries reliant on foreign labour.

Immigration Department foreign workers division director Jamel Ariffin said today that the Home Affairs Ministry had approved over 150,000 work permits to mainly Indonesian workers but their return had been held back because of delay in obtaining visas.

"The Immigration Department will speed up the visa issuance process so that workers can come back immediately. So far, less than 50 percent of the approved workers had obtained visas," said Jamel during a dialogue session organised by the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) for industry players in Kuala Lumpur this morning.

The Home Affairs Ministry had set up a special green lane last month to process foreign labour work permits mainly from contractors seeking to replace undocumented workers who departed the country in view of the implementation of strict immigration laws.

In addition to work permits, employers of foreign labour are also required to apply for visas from the Immigration Department and prepare travel and accommodation arrangements for the new workers.